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Iona learns about winter. Does she like it?

7 December, 2020, newsletter theme: It’s beginning to look a

lot like Hannukka! Starts this week Dec. 10, for 8 nights.

Dear Grey House team members and doughty quaran-

teammates, It’s now 283 blissful days into our unprecedented team-building

exercise.

Did you know? North Carolina produces over 20% of the real Christmas trees in the

U.S.A. https://ncchristmastrees.com/tree-facts/

There have been many, many, many youtube songs of the pandemic, but if you

haven’t seen this one, it may be the best ever. The Starlets - Isolation ABBA Medley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOXtKOziD6M

And start the Holderness Family youtube series with this delightful song. Careful,

there are over 20 by this nutty family, and they are weirdly addictive.

Billie Jean. The quarantine is not quite over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygdB-

ZE0daY

From Christina Carlisi: First the owl in the Rockerfeller center tree, and now this

Koala up a Christmas tree! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/03/on-

the-first-day-of-australian-family-finds-live-koala-in-their-christmas-tree

“It was pretty tangled up in the lights. It was a fake tree and very old but she still tried

eating the leaves off it … I saw her munch down on some but she stopped when she

realised it was plastic.”

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HAPPY NEWS FIRST:

The tree is up at Grey House! We enjoyed working there last week.

Happy news! Ben’s birthday Dec 10. Oh, to be 30 again! Many happy

returns dear Ben! Perhaps you will get one of the new Land Rover

Defenders? Sorry, Susan won’t let me put it on a grant. She’s a meanie.

Temi and Jay did a podcast for the Art of Manliness, and it’s a hoot:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-665-how-childhood-shapes-adulthood/

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Dolly Parton featured this week in the NY Times!

The Grit and Glory of Dolly Parton https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/t-magazine/dolly-parton.html?referringSource=articleShare

Speaking of breasts. Were we speaking of them????

Temi is being given a new intense but briefer radiation treatment protocol, based on a

new RCT recently published in The LANCET. How cool is that?

https://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/accelerated-rads-has-same-effect-as-

traditional

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NEXT, THE UNHAPPY NEWS:

Post-docs under pressure. In the UK, this article in Nature is much talked-about this

week. Let’s have a read of it, and discuss it in our mentoring meetings. Best, temi https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y?WT.ec_id=NATURE-

20201126&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20201126&sap-outbound-

id=B26FC8536744FA9EFC564DB185FAE77733A66AE6

The long-anticipated post-Thanksgiving COVID19 surge is here. NC changed from

yellow to orange on the charts, boooooooo. More than 1 team member and partners are

ill with the virus now. I’ll preserve confidentiality, according to request. But…

How to manage your virus risk

Today, I want to give you a three-step guide to risk minimization. It’s based on a Times survey of 700

epidemiologists as well as my conversations with experts and colleagues, like Donald G. McNeil Jr.

1. There is one behavior you should try to eliminate, without exception: Spending time in a

confined space (outside your household) where anyone is unmasked.

Don’t eat indoors at a restaurant or friend’s house. Don’t have close, unmasked conversations anywhere,

even outdoors. If you must fly, try to not to eat or drink on the plane. If you’re going to work, don’t have

lunch in the same room as colleagues. Group lunches have led to outbreaks at hospitals and elsewhere.

2. This next set of behaviors is best to minimize if you can’t avoid it: Spending extended time in

indoor spaces, even with universal masking.

Masks aren’t perfect. If you can work out at home rather than at a gym — or do your job or attend

religious services remotely — you’re reducing your risk.

3. Now the better news: Several activities are less risky than some people fear.

You don’t need to wear a mask when you go for a walk or a jog. Donald, who’s famously careful, bikes

without a mask. “I consider keeping six feet distant outdoors more important than wearing a mask,” he

told me. “If I had a birthday candle in my hand and you’re too far away to blow it out, I can’t inhale

whatever you exhale.”

You can also feel OK about doing many errands. About 90 percent of the epidemiologists in our survey

have recently visited a grocery store, a pharmacy or another store. Just wear a mask, stay distant from

others and wash your hands afterward.

The big picture: I find it helpful to think about the notion of a personal risk budget. I don’t spend any of

my risk budget on supermarket shopping, because grocery delivery works well for my family. But I do take

occasional unmasked, distant walks with one or two friends. They help keep me sane as we head into a

long, very hard winter.

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THIS WEEK’s Science visualization:

Not a visualization, really, but…..

I loved this sad yet funny perspective from Tom Whipple, the London Times

science journalist, on covering Covid from the start.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tom-whipples-year-in-covid-from-wuhan-to-lockdown-to-vaccine-

3wlmc6506

This story may be behind a pay wall for those who don’t subscribe to the Times, if you

want the whole article, just ask. I will send it to you. Here’s a little taste.

First week of February: What a really scary pandemic looked like then

Stephen Chu, a Nobel laureate and President Obama’s former energy secretary, has

invited me to breakfast. He has also, admittedly, invited 100 other members of the press

to breakfast too – this isn’t an occasion where we get to swap tips about how we like our

eggs. I squint over a muffin at him, from the back of the room.

We are in a conference centre in Seattle, for the annual meeting of the American

Association for the Advancement of Science. Just writing those words now, it feels like

madness. Ten months on, this meeting of scientists feels less like a geeks’ convention,

more like the lurid tale of some last-days-of-Rome bacchanalia.

We arrived on planes. We packed into rooms together. We mingled. At one point I took

a swig from a beer bottle I thought was mine, then realised that The Economist’s

science correspondent had already drunk from it. But that was fine: we all have immune

systems – even on The Economist.

Now for a cool science visualization, for use in E-Risk applications:

This is first draft. Will add Candice’s 2020 survey, and data linkage up to age 22, 2016.

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RESEARCH-PROJECT PROGRESS SINCE 30 Nov:

Ben, Honalee, Karen, Renate, and Susan are on a much-deserved vacation this

month. Talk to them again on 4 January. (Let’s leave them alone till then.)

A 4-Day Workweek for 5 Days’ Pay? Now here’s an idea from New Zealand: Unilever New Zealand Is the Latest to Try https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/business/unilever-work-week.html?referringSource=articleShare

Paper accepted by Molecular Psychiatry!!!! We’re in there somewhere. Honest. "DNA methylation signatures of aggression and closely related constructs: A meta-analysis of

epigenome-wide studies across the lifespan" by Jenny van Dongen, Fiona Hagenbeek, Matthew

Suderman, Peter Roetman, Karen Sugden, Andreas G. Chiocchetti, Khadeeja Ismail, Rosa Mulder,

Jonathan Hafferty, Mark Adams, Rosie Walker, Stewart Morris, Jari Lahti, Leanne Küpers, Georgia

Escaramis, Silvia Alemany, Marc Jan Bonder, Mandy Meijer, Hill Ip, Rick Jansen, Bart Baselmans, Priyanka

Parmar, Estelle Lowry, Fabian Streit, Lea Sirignano, Tabea Send, Josef Frank, Juulia Jylhava, Yunzhang

Wang, Pashupati Mishra, Olivier Colins, David Corcoran, Richie Poulton, Jonathan Mill, Eilis Hannon,

Louise Arseneault, Tellervo Korhonen, Eero Vuoksimaa, Janine Felix, Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg,

Archie Campbell, Darina Czamara, Elisabeth Binder, Eva Corpeleijn, Juan Gonzalez, Regina

Grazuleviciene, Kristine Gutzkow, Jorunn Evandt, Marina Vafeiadi, Marieke Klein, Dennis van der Meer,

Lannie Ligthart, Cornelis Kluft, Gareth Davies, Christian Hakulinen, Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen, Barbara

Franke, Christine Freitag, Kerstin Konrad, Amaia Hervas, Aranzazu Fernández-Rivas, Agnes Vetro, Olli

Raitakari, Terho Lehtimäki, Robert Vermeiren, Timo Strandberg, Katri Räikkönen, Harold Snieder,

Staphanie Witt, Michael Deuschle, Nancy Pedersen, Sara Hagg, Jordi Sunyer, BIOS Consortium, Jaakko

Kaprio, Miina Ollikainen, Terrie Moffitt, Henning Tiemeier, Marinus van IJzendoorn, Caroline Relton,

Martine Vrijheid, Sylvain Sebert, Marjo-Riitta Jarvelin, Avshalom Caspi, Kathryn Evans, Andrew

Mcintosh, Meike Bartels, and Dorret Boomsma

Aaron gave a terrific talk at the Telomere Network last Thursday!!! Thanks to Ben

and Idan for supporting this project.

Tracy D’arbeloff’s manuscript is out for mock review: Midlife cardiovascular fitness

is reflected in the brain’s white matter: Potential implications for biomarker development

in cognitive decline and dementia intervention research

Kyle Bourassa got a provisional accept at Clinical Psychological Science last

week, for ''Lower Cardiovascular Reactivity is Associated with More Childhood Adversity

and Poorer Midlife Health: Replicated Findings from the Dunedin and MIDUS Cohorts''.

Kyle submitted his American Heart Association proposal this week. Childhood

Adversity and Cardiovascular Health. Just one more proposal, due in January.

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Evidence that pre-specified analyses were followed to the letter, the Grey house

meeting room white board last year, from planning for this paper that is coming out in

January: Richmond-Rakerd, L.S., D’Souza, S., Milne, B.J., Caspi, A., & Moffitt, T.E. (in

press). Longitudinal associations of mental disorders with physical diseases and

mortality among 2.3 million New Zealanders. JAMA Network Open.

And dog costumes to celebrate this hospital-register paper coming out:

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Christina Carlisi’s paper on subcortical was turfed by JCPP to JCPP-advances this

week, but Christina opts to resubmit elsewhere, probably JAACAP. Courage Christina!

Marieke de Bruine’s paper is submitted to Adolescent Health: Unraveling the association between peer victimization and systemic inflammation.

Max Elliott submitted his R&R at Nature Aging. "Disparities in the pace of biological

aging among midlife adults of the same chronological age: Implications for early frailty

risk and policy." Fingers crossed!

Jasmin Wertz submitted her R&R, on a provisional acceptance on the first submission from JAMA-Psychiatry for: Psychiatric illness as a risk factor for accelerated aging: Evidence from a population-representative longitudinal cohort study. Good luck Jasmin! Jasmin is also working on an R&R at Social Science and Medicine. The vital personality and healthy aging: Replicated life-course evidence about measurement, correlates, and familial transmission.

Maria Gehred is working on her R&R from Biological Psychiatry due Christmas eve for: Long-term neural embedding of adverse childhood experiences in a population-representative birth cohort followed for five decades. Aaron Reuben & Helen Fisher are submitting to JAMA-Psychiatry Association of childhood air pollution exposure with the emergence of psychopathology at the transition to adulthood. Thanks to Antony Ambler for the reproducibility stat check! Jorim Tielbeek and JC Barnes, report of Jorim’s new GWAS and new polygenic score for antisocial behaviour, Dunedin and E-risk, going out for mock review soon.

Temi and Avshalom met with Fartein Ask Torvik and Espen Roysamb, in Oslo,

about doing research in Norway’s national register datasets. It may become possible to

apply to add collaboration with Fartein in Norway to complement our collaborations with

Signe in Denmark’s registers and with Barry and Stephanie in New Zealand’s registers.

Jon Mill has added 2,000 more participants with methylation data to the UK

Understanding Society Data Set, and Dan Belsky is updating our permission to use

them. Go Jon go!!!!!

Ben has created new polygenic scores, including one for cannabis!

Ben has been working with the ALSPAC GWAS data.

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Karen has managed to download the ADNI data set, and normalize the ADNI

methylation data.

Renate has valiantly done reproducibility checks, including for R&Rs under lots of

time pressure.

Renate has completed analyses for a first draft of a new paper on the p-factor.

Honalee has been finding concentration time to whip the data dictionary into shape.

Antony has been doing loads of reproducibility checks, and whipping the E-Risk data

dictionary into shape.

Projects underway and making good progress toward mock review: Kyle Bourassa and Line Rasmussen, stressful life events and suPAR Max Elliott & Line Rasmussen, brain and suPAR Line Rasmussen, little p and suPAR

Jasmin Wertz, parenting genomics in multiple cohorts Annchen Knodt, long-term cannabis use and midlife brain structure

Madeline Meier; cannabis and brain/cognition

Karen Sugden, education and aging in multiple cohorts Avshalom and Renate, The p-factor, an empirical evaluation

Jess Agnew-Blase, mother-child polygenic ADHD scores and family chaos

Daniel Belsky, Karen, David, Temi, and Avshalom, DunedinPoAm4x

Aaron Reuben, childhood lead and telomere erosion

Aaron Reuben, prospective risk factors for ADRD

Leah Richmond-Rakerd, Stephanie D’Souza, Barry Milne, mental health & ADRD in the NZ IDI

Max Elliott, DunedinPoAm4x and dementia in ADNI

Signe Hald Andersen and Leah Richmond-Rakerd, 3-generations of the concentration of disadvantage and how education breaks the cycle Geli Ronald and Lizzie, Autism Q10 and little p

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This week’s theme: Hannukka season photos to get us in the

seasonal mood!

Sufganiot, the best-ever reason to be Jewish.

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Salomon Israel’s three sons, waiting for their sufganiot in Jerusalem.

And setting your shoe, the best-ever reason to be Dutch!

From Jorim Tielbeek, author of our new antisocial GWAS paper: “Setting a shoe (schoentje

zetten) is basically an invitation for Sinterklaas. By placing children’s shoes by the fireplace, or

another designated spot in a more modern home, Sinterklaas is called to bring candy (usually

chocolate) and small presents.

Don’t be mistaken, this deal goes two ways. In order for the red-robed saint to visit, he requires

a carrot or apple for his horse, and preferably a drawing in his honour to be placed inside the

footwear too. Also, the shoe-setter has to sing one or more songs to call him, before going to

bed.

In earlier years, when children had been bad, they would find a piece of coal, a bag of salt or a

rod in their shoe the next morning, instead of candy. Setting the shoe is usually done in the days

leading up to pakjesavond, but some households also set them on December 5"

Jenny Van Dongen contributes from Amsterdam:

Dr. Julio Licinio, chewing on "Speculaas",

Was thinking of schoentje zetten. Let's deliver the authors of this paper a nice Sinterklaas.

An acceptance letter on the 4th of December,

That will be something for them to remember.

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Have a serene and cheerful week everyone.

Sent by Annchen, and thanks!.